


another un-innocent elegant fall

by alchemystique



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-26 20:34:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12066501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemystique/pseuds/alchemystique
Summary: She believes in the truth of this vision, not because this Three Eyed Raven business makes any sense at all to her, but because it means she is not the last of her family. She is not alone, and she so desperately wants it to be true.She believes it because Rhaegar is not the only Targaryen she knows has fallen for the lackluster charms of these northern creatures - for the clipped, harsh nature of their accents, or their strong convictions, their honor and their bravery.





	another un-innocent elegant fall

>

Dany has imagined, before, what her life might have been if things had been different. If Robert’s Rebellion had never happened, if her brother had won at the Battle of the Trident. 

If, if, if...

She’d have been raised a princess, sister to the heir of the Seven Kingdoms, daughter to a mad king who would likely have been deposed regardless of a rebellion. She imagines Rhaegar himself might have done it - if the stories of his honor were true, at least. 

She’s less certain now.

The men of her family have disappointed her, one after another, until they were all nothing more than rotting flesh and memories of horrible deeds, and the truth of what her brother had done does not make him more admirable in her eyes.

He’d cast aside his wife - an alliance few Targaryens had ever bothered with before, content to keep the family blood as pure as the snow they dared not face to the north. Cast aside the children he’d born of that alliance, to marry a woman a maester had claimed he loved. 

And that woman had given birth to the heir to the Iron Throne. 

She has questioned so many outlandish claims of northern men, and she’s paid the price for it, but that is not what makes her so sure this vision of Brandon Stark is true. 

No, it is the King in the North himself - her knowledge of him, her respect for him, the connection she’s always felt with this courageous fool who hates the violent tool his body has become but uses it all the same. 

She believes in the truth of this vision, not because this Three Eyed Raven business makes any sense at all to her, but because it means she is not the last of her family. She is not alone, and she so desperately wants it to be true.

She believes it because Rhaegar is not the only Targaryen she knows has fallen for the lackluster charms of these northern creatures - for the clipped, harsh nature of their accents, or their strong convictions, their honor and their bravery.

It is a fool thing to do, admitting to herself what she has denied to Tyrion, to Varys, even to Missendei - but once she has done it, she cannot take it back. If only to herself, she will acknowledge the truth of the matter. In the short time she has known Jon Snow (Aegon - her fool brother had asked his northern bride to name the child Aegon, but he will never take the name for his own, this Dany knows) he has managed to win her trust, her armies, her respect, and her heart. It is the last of those that terrifies her - she’d long suspected she had nothing left of it to give, and to know that it might yet yearn for a companion is something she is ill-equipped to handle.

It is worse by far to know he will find their connection repulsive now. Whatever quiet breaths they might have exchanged together on the ship back to Winterfell, whatever promises she might have seen in his eyes in the bed they’d shared - those were gone now. They had to be. The Targaryens might have bedded and wedded to keep the line pure, but the Starks - the Starks were different. 

She’d seen the way he looked at her in the moments before he swept from the room.

Perhaps, in another life, she might have already been married to the man who was the new heir - perhaps in the political upheaval of casting aside his first wife (and with no precedent either, he’d had two children out of that marriage, no maester should ever have allowed it), the kingdoms would have fought themselves to extinction, perhaps Rhaegar would have died anyway - perhaps Viserys would have been considered more appropriate, and without having grown up an exile he might have made a passable king.

Perhaps the world would have fallen into chaos sooner, and perhaps the Night King would have made himself known earlier. 

Perhaps not. 

It hardly mattered. This world is the only one she has, the one she was born into, the one she will live and die in, and whatever might-have-beens there are, they change nothing now.

In the days since Bran Stark had revealed the truth, Daenerys has considered many courses of action, but none of them have changed the fact that her only tether to her sanity has been the silent direwolf who will not leave her side despite the absence of his master. 

It doesn’t bother her, though she’s certain it should. The wolf is much the same as the man - quiet, watchful, curious but unobtrusive. When she leaves her chambers each morning Ghost is there, already standing as though waiting for her, a sentinel outside her door. 

It’s a concern more than a few have brought up - this beasts master is now the biggest challenger to her rule, and yet, when Dany slides out of her rooms to attend to the days business, her fingers slide over the white fur of his muzzle and the beast leans into her touch, eyes catching hers and holding as though waiting for a command.

It doesn’t come. Ghost is a comfort to her, no matter how her advisors warn her against it, but she does not wish to command him. There is an irony to that she does not care to look too far into.

Throughout her day he comes and goes, but each night the direwolf returns to settle across the hall from her door. 

Tonight is the sixth such night, and as she unravels the braids in her hair and tries to ignore the growing hollow in the pit of her stomach at Jon’s continued avoidance of her, his family, and Winterfell itself, she considers, not for the first time, opening her door to the beast and ushering him inside, allowing his presence to fill the room, and banish away some of the loneliness that has seeped into every stone in this castle.

She is no longer the last of the dragons, but she feels more alone now than ever. 

On her third turn about the room, she hears the clatter of Ghost rising, hears a soft crunch of leather, and considers the possibilities - it could be one of her men, startling Ghost awake (though she’s never seen the direwolf so much as blink in surprise), or it could be one of the northerners angry that the King in the North is just as much a dragon as a wolf - it could be one loyal to Jon, here to get rid of the only person who might stand in his way.

Dany pauses, just before the door, eyes darting across the room, and they land on a dagger near her bedside. In the moment before she moves to reach for it, she tries to shake off the knowledge that her first instinct had been to open the door right away, to defend her silent shadow, before she ever thought of herself.

When she is in front of the door once more, Dany takes a deep, steadying breath. There are Unsullied soldiers at the end of this hallway, and Ghost outside the door besides - nothing outside of her chambers could pose a threat to her.

_Arya Stark might_ , the thought comes, unbidden, but she casts it aside, and twists the key in it’s lock, unlatching the heavy wooden door and blinking into the dark corridor.

Ghost she spots first - there are no torches lit in the hall, and only a dim light coming from the shuttered window at the far end, but Ghost is easy to spot, sitting once more, the bright white of his coat glimmering in the candlelight cast from behind her. 

Her gaze shifts to her right, and Dany can do little more than blink as she takes in the direwolfs late night companion - head propped back against the wall opposite her, legs stretched out in front on him, missing the usual cloaks, and furs - the chestplate and boiled leathers gone too, his eyes shifting carefully from Ghost to her as she stares down upon him.

Jon Snow is a mess. He’s always been hesitant, tentative, rarely holding himself with the grace that might be expected of a lord or a king - the only place he’s ever looked truly highborn is with a sword in his hand and an enemy to fight. 

She’d liked that about him from the start - it had amused her at first, but as she’d grown to know it she’d learned to respect him for it. He didn’t give a damn about titles or ancestors - he cared about his people. About their survival.

His eyes as he turns his gaze to meet hers are glossy, his hair tied back clumsily, the scruff of his beard longer than she’s used to seeing it. 

He doesn’t speak, even as he moves to stand, bracing a hand against the wall behind him, and she takes this moment of distraction to admire the line of his neck, and the strand of hair he’d not managed to pull back that hangs loose over one brow. 

She remembers the way he’d grunted when she’d licked a line up his throat, remembered the pleasant stutter of her heart at the way he’d looked at her when she’d brought a hand up to run her thumb over the widows peak at his crown, and even as he moves across the hall towards her, his steps carefully light and even, she can’t find it in her to hide her thoughts. 

She expects a brisk and curt conversation, some declaration that what they’d done was a mistake, that they must move past it, for the north, for the realm. For the fight ahead, and she braces herself for it, ready to swallow back her arguments, ready to accept that they will be but strangers who share the same blood.

It is a surprise, then, when his hand reaches up to cup her cheek, when his eyes seek out hers, and hold her gaze, and she pulls in a deep breath in response, memorizing the feel of those warm, rough hands against her skin. 

Closer to him now, she can see the sharp hollow of his throat as he swallows, the deep purpling beneath his eyes, showing off the same sleepless nights she has gone through recently. The hand still hanging by his side is clenched into a fist, and without a thought for decency, or propriety, for anything but the man standing in front of her with hope in his eyes, she reaches for it, curling her small fingers around it, the rustle of the fabric around his wrist the only sound save their breathing.

He follows her into her rooms without question, allowing the pressure of her hand over his to pull them both past her doorway, and as she shuts the door behind them, Ghost settles once more against the stone floor.

He’s more sure of himself, beyond the threshold, his hand sliding down her cheek, skimming her throat before it settles where her neck meets her shoulder, and the fist in her hand unfurls, fingers twisting over her palm so that he can curl them into hers. Another stuttering breath and he leans forward, presses his forehead against hers, and his eyes flutter closed as he brushes aside the curtain of hair hanging over her shoulder.

“Dany,” he says, the word barely more than a whisper, and she takes in the rise and fall of his chest, the pressure of his head against hers, the tremble of his hand as it settles once more, this time curled carefully around her neck, his thumb against her pulse, two fingers sliding against her spine.  


She wants desperately to kiss him, wants desperately, despite what she might have said before about it, to hear him call her _Dany_ again in that rough, thick way he’d said it into the side of her neck as he finished, but she’s not entirely sure he’s here for that.

He’s still coiled so tight - every shift of his muscle tells her he’s holding back, every unsteady breath makes her think he’s prepared for a fight.

His eyes blink open again, and he blinks, twice, something unfocused about the movement. 

When she pulls her head back, his own falls forward before he manages to jerk it back, and he nearly stumbles forward into her.

“You’re drunk,” she tells him, her face pinching, her gaze growing cold, and he stares at her for a moment before he drops her hand, and the one curled around her neck he drags across her skin, raising it away from her to run over his face, pulling back the strand of loose hair as he leans back against her door.  


He snorts, his lip twitching up, and turns to meet her gaze again. “Aye.”

Everything instinct she has tells her to send him away, to order him out of her sight, to sober up and behave like the king he’s meant to be. She does none of those things.

Off her stern look, he chuckles, shoulders bouncing as he stares at her, which only serves to make her more angry. “This situation amuses you?”

“Can’t seem to rustle up disgust, _Your Grace_ ,” he says, and the loose hair falls back over his eye. “Might as well enjoy the fucking joke until it kills me.”  


Her eyes snap to his. “And you think I intend to kill you?”

His shrug slides against the wood of the door at his back, but after a moment he recovers from the slump, shoulders rolling back, his stance straightening, the half manic smile disappearing from his face. “Not yet.”

It angers her more than it should. They are barely more than strangers, despite the things they’ve shared between them. And in the dark recesses of her mind, the thought had crossed her. Just the once, and she’d dashed it away as quickly as it had come. She’d never once considered he might have the same thought.

Whatever he was, he was a _dragon_ , and a good man besides. Both of those were a rare thing in this world.

And still it irks her that he’s come to such a conclusion. “I haven’t spent the past week planning your demise, _Lord Snow_.”

His jaw clenches at the name, just as she’d hoped it would. She could have used Aegon to the same effect, but if he meant to call her Your Grace behind closed doors, she’d give him a taste of the same.

“You’re the only one then.”  


There is no anger in his voice, no fear, only resigned acceptance, and the dragon in her rears up, her lips pursed as she drags her eyes over him once more. 

He blows out a breath through his nose as she takes two wide steps to meet him, her hands reaching for his where they hang loose at his sides.

“They will have to come through me first, if they plan to get to you.”  


The rough scars along his palm steady her through the buzzing rage at the thought of any who might dare to plot against him. It is a foreign feeling to her, reserved in the past only for her children, but it is different, too. He is far more vulnerable than the two dragons she has left - he’s seen death in a way she will never understand, and he is still barely more than a stranger. But she has seen his heart behind the strength of his gaze, and she has never known anything that she wishes to fight for more than that.

More words burn on the tip of her tongue, promises of fire and blood, affirmations that his enemies are hers as well, and if it sounds in her mind like a pledge of fealty, she cares not - but before she can get them out he seems to shake himself of the fog around his mind. 

Hands still grasped tight in hers, he drops to one knee.

In the half year since they’d met, this man has at turns refused to swear his loyalty, has told her his people will not accept her, has pledged himself in word, has declared for House Targaryen in front of the rulers of Westeros despite the trouble it would cause, all for the sake of being honorable and true.

He has not, however, bent the knee.

If she is honest, she never truly expected it of him. His words meant more than most, and the action itself became unnecessary in the Dragon Pits of Kings Landing.

And now he kneels before her, no bastard of the north but the rightful king of the Seven Kingdoms.

“I don’t want it,” he tells her, the sharp cadence of his voice drifting over her like a prayer. “Not the bloody throne, not the north, not the Seven Kingdoms. I’ll refuse them all, given the chance.”  


“How do you suppose you’ll do that?”  


“I’ll take the Black. Your uncle did it.”  


He’s so adamant it’s hard not to smile, but she pushes through it. A plan has begun too form in her mind, and though it will certainly tear her from him, it will ensure their families survival.

“You’ve broken your vows to the Nights Watch before. Who is to say you wouldn’t again?” He opens his mouth, ready with a response, but Dany continues over him. “What would you protect us from? The Wildlings are already here at your invitation, living and fighting with us. And if we fail to beat the Night King, there will be no one left to protect anyway.”  


“Grumpkins and snarks, then,” he tells her, and though it is surely meant to be cheeky, it does not lift her spirits.   


Or his, it seems. 

“The North will accept your rule,” she argues.  


He shakes his head slowly, that lock of hair drifting lazily about his forehead once more, and she must again resist the urge to pull him to his feet, strip him of his days old clothes, and fuck him into the furs lining her floors. “I have more enemies now than I did yesterday.”

“And you will prove them _wrong_.”  


“Your Grace -.”  


“Am I your queen?”  


He doesn’t hesitate. “ _Aye_ , but -.”

“The I insist upon it. I demand you earn their loyalty back.”  


In the silence that follows, she imagines the conversations she will have to have later. Tyrion will be furious - or pleased, she supposes. Others will fight it, and some might even respect it. She does not care.

Jon, she knows, will hate her for it, but it will make for a clean break between them. 

They will never again be able to share the shift of skin over skin, the quiet confessions beneath furs and darkness. 

“Why?” he finally asks, and Dany stares down at him for a moment, remembers the feel of his hair against her fingers, and the pucker of skin around his scars, the quiet groans against her skin, the whisper soft touch of his hands against her, the look in his eyes as he bore down into her.  


Dany kneels down to meet his gaze head on, ignoring the panicked understanding she sees there. “You are the last of us. The only one left to continue our line. When we defeat the Night King, I _will_ take the Iron Throne, but I will bear no children, and it cannot end with me.” Dany breathes deep, ignores the itch to press her forehead to his as he had done. He is a man used to touch - embraces given freely to old friends, kisses bestowed upon the foreheads of the girls he had grown up calling sisters, hands clasped with allies, this man is no stranger to touch, but Dany has avoided such contact for so long. If she begins anew with him now, she will not be able to say her piece. “You and your children will rule after me. The Targaryens survive, and the realm will have a true and just leader long after I am gone.”

He stares at her a beat, jaw rolling and then clenching before his gaze meets her steadily. He nods, and for a moment she is certain she will receive no argument.

“ _Fuck_ the Targaryens.”  


Jon pushes away from her and stands, dropping her hands to run his fingers through his hair. It has the effect of turning him into a wild creature - as he paces back and forth, steady despite the drink still surely affecting him, curls spring loose from the leather strap he’d haphazardly contained them in. 

Dany stands as well, ready to fight back, to explain to him that this _must_ be their way through this.

Jon has other ideas.

“What have the the Targaryens done for either of us? Your father burned my uncle and grandfather. My father - _uncle_. Another uncle died still protecting the secret of my birth because the world _hated_ the Targaryens enough they would have wanted me dead - they wanted _you_ dead, just like the rest. If they’d lived, what do you imagine they would have done for us? How does the saying go? When a dragon is born, the gods flip a coin.” The look he shoots her tells her he’s not certain which way either of theirs had landed. “They ruled through fear! They destroyed everything that made them great - isn’t that what you said?”

Dany tries to argue the point, getting so far as to say his name before he’s begun again. 

“The only one to survive the Baratheons other than you and me was your _shit_ brother.” She’d told him of Viserys, one night on the ship, while they sat in her rooms and shared wine while they pretended they weren’t going to end up back in her bed. It had been easier, at the time, than talking about the dragon she’d named after him. “Is that what you want? Madness, and brutality? Family willing to sell each other off like chattel, to break vows and cast aside children?”  


Dany raises her chin. “And who do you suppose will rule instead?”

“No one. Anyone. I don’t _care_.”  


If she were a wiser woman, she’d demand it of him. But his words, harsh as they are, cut deep to the heart of the one thing she has always been most afraid of, a fear he shares, that seems now to have grown in the wake of his new knowledge. _We all enjoy what we’re good at,_ she’d told him.

_I don’t._

He was only half Targaryen, but what sort of difference could it really make? His children might be good and kind with his help, but after them? How many centuries would it take to dilute the madness out of their stock?

“I’ve had little enough reason to want to survive beyond this war.” His voice is soft, and she watches his expression shift as he stops his pacing.   


_Love comes in at the eyes._

When she’d come to these shores, she’d wanted a throne, and an alliance. She’s done a horrible job with both, thus far, but now. Now she has family, and a cause to fight for. Now she has this man, this foolish hero, standing across the room from her, challenging once more everything she knows, every plan she makes.

“Don’t ask me to give up one more thing to live for.”  


It’s not romantic - it’s rather bleak, truth be told. But it is true, and it is real, and from Jon, it means more than any proclamation or flowery phrase ever could.

Perhaps neither of them will survive this war. Perhaps he is right about the curse which she has always taken at face value. Perhaps another is destined to rule the Seven Kingdoms.

Perhaps. 

It matters not.

“Fine.”  


He falters. He’d expected more of a fight from her - words on the tip of his tongue swallowed as she moves across the room towards him once more. 

She’s chased this man more than anything but the Iron Throne.

He leans into her touch when her hand slides across his cheek, breathing raggedly as she presses forward to graze her lips against his cheeks, one after the other. They have been passionate, and tender too, but Dany is not certain she’s ever been this gentle with anyone before. Tonight is not a night to let the fire run wild between them. 

“Why did you come here tonight?”  


His hand curls around her elbow as her own slides up his arm, over his shoulder and around his neck to tug him closer. “I came to fetch Ghost.”

It’s a lie. He doesn’t tell them often, and he’s terrible at it. It makes her happy, knowing that she understands him well enough to know that. She shakes her head, and he leans into her. 

“I came to bend the knee.”  


“Lie,” she says, a whisper against his lips in the small space left between them.  


He smiles, the bristles of his beard shifting against her skin.

“To fuck you, then.”  


She hums, a low noise, her forehead rolling against his as she shakes her head one more time. 

“Because I need you,” he mutters, dragging a palm across her back, his head dipping to the side to press his lips into the hair behind her ear. “Because I want you. Because I’m yours just as much as the fucking wolf who hasn’t left your side.”  


She strips him down to his smallclothes, tosses her own gown over the end of the bed, and drags him beneath the furs with her, pressing kisses to his skin, his face, his lips. She ignores the stirring in her belly - despite his claim, it wasn’t her body he came looking for tonight. It was something far more difficult for her to give, and yet, she had anyway.

“ _Dany_ ,” he whispers, a promise and a challenge all in one, one last reminder that he will continue to defy her even as they find a way through this storm together. She’ll never tell him that it pleases her, but it does, all the same.  


He falls into slumber with his hands still curled around her cheek, and it takes some maneuvering to free herself without waking him. She pads across the room to the door as quietly as she can, wincing when the hinges of the door squeak upon opening.

Ghost stares back at her through the darkness of the corridor, tilting his head as though in thought. Dany stares back. 

The great beast stands quietly, and then slips past her as she opens the door wider, blood red eyes watching her as she closes and relatches it before returning to her spot beside Jon, who mumbles nonsense as she settles back in and pulls the rest of his hair free of the leather strap containing it.

The direwolf drops her gaze after a moment, and settles back onto the floor at the end of the bed.

Perhaps, she thinks as she closes her eyes, in another world, things might have been different. Perhaps this was an inevitability in _any_ world. Perhaps she merely needs an excuse for accepting this.

Perhaps.


End file.
